Washington  -  In Missouri, we can go to the grocery store and see the work of the USDA.  When senior citizens visit their physicians, Medicare is clearly at work.  But we cannot so clearly observe the operations of American intelligence services at home and overseas.

The intelligence business is a delicate one.  We hear a lot about agencies’ failures
because they show up on the nightly news.  On the other hand, we seldom learn about the successes because, by keeping them quiet, intelligence agencies preserve the methods and tactics that are effective in the war on terror.

In the years, weeks, and days leading up to September 11th, 2001, we did not gain the
information we needed in a timely way to prepare for these terrorist attacks and threats.

Washington has been buzzing for weeks now about the 9-11 panel’s investigation into U.S. intelligence practices and procedures.  Amidst the intrigue over who will testify, who will not, and who has a blockbuster book coming out, the point of these proceedings is being lost.

This investigation, which I support, provides the critical opportunity to reassess,
review, and hopefully modify the shortcomings of our entire intelligence establishment leading up to and following 9-11.  These proceedings are an important part of the legacy of 3,000 dead at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in a Pennsylvania field less than three years ago.

For those who perished, these hearings are an essential inquiry into what happened on 9-11, as well as what we should have known and what we could have done to prevent this tragedy.

Since then, we have learned that the international intelligence community is a complex
set of agencies with different functions, from Interpol to the Department of Defense to the National Security Agency.  As we have learned, they did not always communicate with one another.  Nor did they always cross-check their information.  This review of their organizational and management structures is essential to avoid repeating any lapses in the defense of our homeland.

Since 9-11, we have consolidated intelligence services, reformed information sharing, and coordinated their work under the new Department of Homeland Security.  The result is a streamlined set of intelligence services which do not duplicate each others 
functions nearly as much as in the pre-9-11 days of intelligence autonomy.

As a member of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, I attend frequent
meetings and hearings with officials in the new department and our intelligence services.  The point of this panel, too, is to perfect the business of protecting Americans from another catastrophic terrorist attack.  An open, honest dialog is the best medicine for improving this system.

That said, homeland security is a colossal, relatively new task for all of our agencies,
including food security at the Department of Agriculture and intelligent transportation systems at the Department of Transportation.  As a nation that prides itself on being open and accessible, there will always be opportunities to take advantage of our free society.  Without infringing on the very principles our brave men and women in uniform are fighting for in the Middle East, we must minimize the risk of a future terrorist attack
on our nation.

Government oversight and public proceedings are essential to the accountability of
intelligence services.  We do not need to know every detail, and there are details I am sure only a few Americans will take to their graves, but we do need to know this investigation is a group effort.

Unless we complete the transformation from many intelligence services operating
autonomously to many working together with the common goal of homeland security, we are not making this nation safer.  Like the Dutch boy with his thumb in the dike, America must resolve not to plug the holes in our homeland security, but to rebuild the dike – taller, thicker, stronger.

In Missouri we know that just one big storm – even one far upriver – can lead to a flood
that no levee can contain.  The same lesson applies to homeland defense.  From border security to food safety to protections against chemical, biological, and nuclear threats, this levee must hold.